Members of FDA Advisory Committee Offer Perspectives on Flibanserin Approval in JAMA

In the September issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) three FDA advisory committee members describe the convergence of factors that made the committee’s recommendation to approve flibanserin especially challenging and politically charged. The authors of the JAMA editorial, Walid Gellad, Kathryn Flynn, and Caleb Alexander, all served on the FDA scientific advisory committee that ultimately recommended approval of flibanserin for the treatment of hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD). They list all of the following factors as explanations for what made the committee’s decision so difficult in this case, but do not offer a thorough explanation as to why the drug was ultimately approved despite these issues.

Shifting Efficacy Points:

When the FDA denied the original Flibanserin application in 2009 they ruled that the phase 3 trials failed to show a significant improvement over placebo. In these trials the primary measure for assessing sexual desire was derived from a daily electronic diary completed by study participants. When the drug was brought back before the FDA in 2013 the diaries were no longer the primary outcome measure. Instead, the primary measurement was now the Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI) which showed “statistically significant but numerically small treatment differences.” For instance, at 24 weeks participants showed an increase of 0.5 satisfying sexual events per month compared with placebo. Writing for MIA ahead of the FDA’s recommendation, Emily Wheeler et al., also discussed concerns over potential conflicts of interest in the development of the FSFI scale. No new efficacy data was presented at the most recent FDA review, according to the JAMA editorial.

Tenuous Risk-Benefit Balance:

During the 2013 review, the advisory committee enumerated a list of safety concerns upon rejecting the drug application. The safety concerns included hypotension (low blood pressure), syncope (fainting), somnolence (extreme drowsiness), and “the potential for adverse effects when flibanserin is taken with alcohol or… oral contraceptives,” or with fluconazole (a common antifungal). While no new data on the drug’s efficacy was presented at the most recent FDA review, Flibanserin’s sponsors did bring some new evidence on the drug’s safety. The new safety data included a study on next-day driving impairments, a comparison of Flibanserin’s adverse effects with that of other drugs, and a study on the potential effects of taking the drug while consuming alcohol. In their review, Gellad et al. do not speak highly of the new evidence, writing:

“Although the driving study was reassuring, isolated comparisons of safety across products can be misleading because FDA product reviews are not fundamentally comparative in nature. Notably, the alcohol interaction study took place in a sample of 25 healthy volunteers, only 2 of whom were women.”

The Even the Score advocacy campaign:

Wheeler et al., also discuss in their MIA blog how the “Even the Score” marketing campaign was able to put pressure on the FDA by making powerful but dubious claims about Flibanserin and the prevalence of hypoactive sexual desire disorder. In their report, Gellad et al., acknowledge the effects of the marketing campaign. They write:

“Although flibanserin is not the first product to be supported by a consumer advocacy group in turn supported by pharmaceutical manufacturers, claims of gender bias regarding the FDA’s regulation have been particularly noteworthy, as have the extent of advocacy efforts ranging from social media campaigns to letters from members of Congress.”

Patient Reported Outcome Measures:

In their report, Gellad et al. concede that patient-reported outcomes based on study participants self-reports are increasinglybecoming accepted as primary outcome measures in FDA applications. However, they draw attention to the fact that flibanserin’s sponsors switched the primary outcome measure from daily diaries, where participants recorded the intensity of their desire each day, to the FSFI, which asked participants to recall the frequency and intensity of their desires over 4 weeks. The FDA briefing memorandum, specifically states that while FSFI is commonly used, “there are continued challenges associated with its use and questions about its adequacy as an efficacy measure to support drug approval.” According to the JAMA report:

“The FDA raised some concerns about the optimization of the FSFI for assessing desire, including the content validity and recall period, but the recent advisory committee did not focus discussion on either the switch in primary end points or the validity of the FSFI.”

Potential for Off-label use:

The authors on the advisory committee understood that “there are few reliable estimates of the prevalence of HSDD” and that the product “is all but certain to be used off-label among a broader population of women than has been studied… many of whom may have conditions or concomitant medication use that increases the risk of adverse events.” They also point out that many of the women who were brought in for public comments to express the need for flibanserin, were not part of the population approved for the drug’s use. Because they reported “conditions that may have excluded them from on-label treatment, such as a cancer diagnosis or postmenopausal status,” they effectively reinforced concerns about dangerous off-label use.

According to the conflict of interest disclosures in JAMA, of the three authors, Gellad and Flynn voted to recommend approval of flibanserin with risk management strategies, and Alexander voted to not recommend approval of the drug.

To read the Wheeler et al. Op-Ed for Mad in America, which describes the ways in which “disease mongering,” conflicts of interest, and commercialization contributed to the creation and approval of Flibanserin, click here →

MIA-UMB News Editor: Justin Karter is a writer, researcher and community organizer with graduate degrees in both journalism and community psychology. He is a doctoral candidate in Counseling Psychology at UMass Boston, an active member of the Society for Humanistic Psychology, and is currently working on several scholarly projects at the intersection of psychology, social theory, and political philosophy.

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And regarding this quote – “there are few reliable estimates of the prevalence of HSDD” – is this a joke? Does any serious scientist think that a variable, individualize behavioral problem like lack of sexual desire can be quantified and its prevalence measured reliably across a population? What idiots…

This makes me think that if any problematic behavior can be turned into an illness, maybe I too can profit. Perhaps I can get a scientist friend to help me market new pills to treat “Minecraft Addiction Syndrome” in children, or create a new antipsychotic to treat, “Islamic State Affiliation Tendency Disorder” in young men, or create appetite suppression pills to help those with “Mild Periodic Overeating Disorder.”

If you want to join with me on this profit making quest, just add your name below. Think of the relief we could bring to society…

Yes, the psychiatrists and drug companies, who have seemingly bought out the FDA, do have a scam going, don’t they? Make up diseases to get the entire world onto psychoactive drugs forever.

We already have 25% of grown American women on antidepressants, and the FDA apparently believes we need more. It’s sick.

And for anyone considering going on this drug, you should be made aware of the fact the withdrawal symptoms of antidepressants can be severe, in the event the drug does not work for you, and you decide to go off it. And the DSM5 now claims it is appropriate to claim the common adverse effects and withdrawal symptoms of antidepressants are bipolar.

That’s what they do. It would be laughable if people didn’t swallow it hook, line and sinker. Consider such luminous examples as “Oppositional Defiant Disorder,” characterized by not doing as you’re told and liking to argue with authorities, “Intermittent Explosive Disorder,” characterized by having a bad temper and acting out physically at times, and “Mathematics Disorder,” characterized by having difficulty doing academic math work. They will take anything considered “non-optimum” and turn it into a disorder, especially if there is a drug company waiting in the wings to sell a drug to “treat” the “disorder.” “Social Anxiety Disorder” was essentially invented by the makers of Paxil, once they found that their drug tested out as being able to reduce the “symptoms” of the yet-to-be-defined “disorder.” “Juvenile Bipolar Disorder” was created out of whole cloth by one Joseph Biedermann, who of course was taking payola from a drug company.

The whole DSM is constructed that way – they take a bunch of behaviors that often occur at the same time, make them into “criteria,” decide how many “criteria” you have to meet before you have the “disorder,” and bam! you’re mentally ill! They might just as easily take a nose-picker and say he has “Excessive digital-nasal insertion disorder” characterized by … It is just that scientific, aka not scientific AT ALL.